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This Thread Will Go Down in [History]

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Nov 9th through 10th across Germany the Nazi party's planned riots broke out and smashed stores, synagogues, homes, apartments, people, and anything of Jewish descent or connection. Two days of murder, rape, and terror followed by years of more of the same. It's important to remember the events which historians of the rise of nazism are quite adamant about telling us is damn reminiscent of many places in the world today, including the United States.

This was the most reported foreign event in the world at the time, and at the time, there were still supporters of the Nazis in the US, Great Britain, France and Poland, to name a few. At the time Charles Lindbergh said "We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood."
Remember that this can happen again and that it will not be met with universal condemnation. There is no amount of showing them what their ideology means that will break them out of it.

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

- Siegfried Sassoon, 1918

Remembrance Day (11/11) is a big deal in European and Commonwealth countries (coinciding with Veterans Day in the USA, but with a particular focus on WWI).

I don't have anything novel to say about the topic, it's just a day that I think is going to hit harder than usual this year. As the world grapples once again with nationalism and isolationism, this time while under an encroaching threat which will require unified and collective action to avoid untold destruction, I'm going to make a personal effort to remember and mourn the cost of such rhetoric. Even if I have to stand in the rain to do it.

I think that one thing that is absolutely worth saying, every time and forever, is that Remembrance Day is absolutely not even the tiniest bit about glorifying celebrating any kind of victory. We remember the millions who died because they were fellow human beings. We are thankful that those who didn't die survived.

We hope that they died in the two wars that once and for all exposed the absolute moral necrosis of nationalism and authoritarianism, and exposed the lie that free people wont be as brave or as determined to defend themselves. The lie that we have to be afraid of The Other to be safe.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen was killed just a few weeks after he wrote that poem. World War 1 is such a tragic and awful saga of events, and the psychological impact of it is still influencing us. My great grandfather was an American cavalryman during the war. He'd grown up on a farm and knew how to ride. He never spoke to my grandpa about it, or any of his other children, except to say he did his duty and came home.

+1

lonelyahavaMortius is correctMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular

Near the start of the Great War, Ralph Vaughan Williams was walking along the English Coast. He was looking for inspiration.

A lark lifted up in the air in front of him and flittered about on the currents, and watching the bird sail, Vaughan Williams was struck with that very inspiration. He jotted the notes down in his notepad.

Unfortunately for him, the English navy had been doing some exercises in the water near where he had been walking. A young scout for the Englihs navy saw Vaughan Williams walking along, jotting things in his notebook, and assumed he was taking notes about coastal defenses.

Vaughan Williams was arrested.

Later released, he took those notes that he had jotted down and orchestrated them into this, "The Lark Ascending".

The Classical station down here has a yearly countdown of listener favourites. For the last 3 years, thispiece has been at the top of the list.

Tomorrow (11th) in the UK the BBC is showing a film by Peter Jackson called They Shall Not Grow Old.

Basically it's footage from WW1 colourized and sound added to try and give as accurate picture of what life was life for soldiers:

I saw this today. It's very good, but they aren't kidding about it showing some graphic stuff. There's a whole lot of dead bodies in that.

It's entirely about the West Front and Brits in the Battle of the Somme, so don't go in expecting Gallipoli or any other major hotspots, but they manage to cover a lot in its runtime.

The remastered footage is mostly just running in the background to illustrate stories from WW1 vets (presumably pulled from the BBC archives). There's some fun uplifting stories towards the beginning, and some really harrowing stuff towards the end (particularly as they talk about the Battle of the Somme).

I'd recommend it, but just be prepared for dark depressing WW1 stories and footage of dead bodies.

Tomorrow (11th) in the UK the BBC is showing a film by Peter Jackson called They Shall Not Grow Old.

Basically it's footage from WW1 colourized and sound added to try and give as accurate picture of what life was life for soldiers:

I saw this today. It's very good, but they aren't kidding about it showing some graphic stuff. There's a whole lot of dead bodies in that.

It's entirely about the West Front and Brits in the Battle of the Somme, so don't go in expecting Gallipoli or any other major hotspots, but they manage to cover a lot in its runtime.

The remastered footage is mostly just running in the background to illustrate stories from WW1 vets (presumably pulled from the BBC archives). There's some fun uplifting stories towards the beginning, and some really harrowing stuff towards the end (particularly as they talk about the Battle of the Somme).

I'd recommend it, but just be prepared for dark depressing WW1 stories and footage of dead bodies.

I would love to watch this but the only way it is coming to the US is in theaters on two days I have to work.

17 near me, but most look to have been from Portland, Dorset, UK, rather than Portland, Oregon, US.
Huh. In Portland, Dorset, there is a restaurant called Miss Piggys Pantry and another called Cod Fathers.

Tomorrow (11th) in the UK the BBC is showing a film by Peter Jackson called They Shall Not Grow Old.

Basically it's footage from WW1 colourized and sound added to try and give as accurate picture of what life was life for soldiers:

I saw this today. It's very good, but they aren't kidding about it showing some graphic stuff. There's a whole lot of dead bodies in that.

It's entirely about the West Front and Brits in the Battle of the Somme, so don't go in expecting Gallipoli or any other major hotspots, but they manage to cover a lot in its runtime.

The remastered footage is mostly just running in the background to illustrate stories from WW1 vets (presumably pulled from the BBC archives). There's some fun uplifting stories towards the beginning, and some really harrowing stuff towards the end (particularly as they talk about the Battle of the Somme).

I'd recommend it, but just be prepared for dark depressing WW1 stories and footage of dead bodies.

From the comments re their grandfather:

He was 36 with five children when he signed up in 1915. At the time, there were plenty of volunteers and there was no pressure on a man his age with dependents to enlist. He returned to military service for king and country. He was at the Somme for the entire battle. My father remembers stories he told after he'd had a few drinks, including about walking through No-Man's Land at night and realizing the ground was squishy because he was walking on bodies.

A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.

the scale of tallships is mind boggling, really. literal miles of rope, a thousand people on a single vessel sometimes.

edit: it occurred to me just after posting, i have no idea how much rope, actually, a ship of the line would have had aboard, other than "a lot" so i decided to find out, and what i found out was that the HMS Victory required 26 miles of rope to sail.

the scale of tallships is mind boggling, really. literal miles of rope, a thousand people on a single vessel sometimes.

edit: it occurred to me just after posting, i have no idea how much rope, actually, a ship of the line would have had aboard, other than "a lot" so i decided to find out, and what i found out was that the HMS Victory required 26 miles of rope to sail.

It makes more sense than I realized. I drove Bradley AFV's in the Army and they have something like 3 miles of wiring in them.

Probably the broadest history I enjoyed recently was A Million Years In a Day by Greg Jenner, which uses the framework of a hypothetical person's day to talk about how ordinary tasks and experiences have evolved over time. So he'll start with a morning shower, and then talk about what habits of cleanliness and bathing were like in various places at various points in history. It's fairly fluffy and filled with British dad humor, but it's a pretty good time.

It's not new, but 1491 and 1493 by Charles C. Mann are probably the finest history books I've ever read. The former is a history of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus, and the latter is a really good breakdown of the aftereffects of European contact.

+6

lonelyahavaMortius is correctMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular

the scale of tallships is mind boggling, really. literal miles of rope, a thousand people on a single vessel sometimes.

edit: it occurred to me just after posting, i have no idea how much rope, actually, a ship of the line would have had aboard, other than "a lot" so i decided to find out, and what i found out was that the HMS Victory required 26 miles of rope to sail.

you might dig the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. they are chock fuckin' full of mind-numbing detail about the specifics of running a royal navy ship during the napoleonic wars, and also they have some of the best dry-ass humor i've ever read:

The sloth sneezed, and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed upon him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. 'Try a piece of this, old cock,' he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. 'It might put a little heart into you.' The sloth sighed, closed its eyes, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again.

Some minutes later he felt a touch on his knee; the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog; growing confidence and esteem. After this, as soon as the drum had beat the retreat, the sloth would meet him, hurrying towards the door on its uneven legs: it was given its own bowl and would grip it with its claws, lowering its round face into it and pursing its lips to drink. Sometimes it went to sleep in this position, bowed over the emptiness.

"In this bucket," said Stephen, walking into the cabin, "in this small half-bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London and Paris combined: these animalculae - what is the matter with the sloth?" It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable, bleary face, shoot it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep.

Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, "Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

(apparently, if a sailor likes someone or something, he will get him/her/it drunk)

[Copied from the D&D history thread because we're getting close to Christmas]

So we all known about Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien and his massive legendarium of Middle Earth, with a history spanning several thousand years and maps and family trees of the important characters and so forth. The reason he did it all is because, apparently, that's just how he rolled. For instance, for over twenty years, he would pen letters from Father Christmas to his children. At first it was just a little card with a handdrawn illustration and a note:

And then he went Tolkien on this world too and made a bunch of characters with backstories and histories and a special calligraphy style (spoiled for "it's large enough to read"):

[Copied from the D&D history thread because we're getting close to Christmas]

So we all known about Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien and his massive legendarium of Middle Earth, with a history spanning several thousand years and maps and family trees of the important characters and so forth. The reason he did it all is because, apparently, that's just how he rolled. For instance, for over twenty years, he would pen letters from Father Christmas to his children. At first it was just a little card with a handdrawn illustration and a note:

And then he went Tolkien on this world too and made a bunch of characters with backstories and histories and a special calligraphy style (spoiled for "it's large enough to read"):

The man just loved worldbuilding.

One gets the feeling he'd have been very happy as one of those monks producing illuminated manuscripts

+12

StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular

This year (in a couple of days) is the 100 year anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood, a disaster which killed 21 people and injured an additional 150 (along with massive amounts of property damage) in the North End of Boston.

There's a great book about it, but if you want a quicker primer, this article seems pretty good.

well that's good! but yeah i was referring to arthur jell. to be fair i learned almost everything i know about the molasses flood from drunk history and then a little light reading i did after i watched that episode

0

StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular

Yeah I would not deny that Jell was culpable, but I would also suggest that he was put into a position that he should not have been by USIA. He was a bookkeeper and treasurer for the company (and continued to be after the disaster and subsequent trial, it appears) who was put in charge of this, and while he absolutely should have been deferring to experts on many of the decisions he was required to make and fucked up there in a big way, he was doing so due to pressure from USIA to get the project done as quickly as possible.

I also suspect that part of the reason he wasn't sacked was because that would have been a tacit admission that the company was at fault - they insisted all throughout the trial that the explosion was a deliberate attack by anarchists, and tried to keep him from being deposed because he wasn't relevant to their story.

Edit: It looks like USIA paid a total of $600,000 in out of court settlements (approximately $9 million if adjusted for inflation), with relatives of the deceased receiving $7,000 ($100,000 today).

well yeah they consorted with all sorts of nasty types! suffragettes, worker's rights leaders, advocates for the poor, immigrants. it's no wonder they're fjdkslavnjakfndsajfdskl; look at me i'm a turn-of-the-century idiot

This year (in a couple of days) is the 100 year anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood, a disaster which killed 21 people and injured an additional 150 (along with massive amounts of property damage) in the North End of Boston.

There's a great book about it, but if you want a quicker primer, this article seems pretty good.